It is Released

Expert and Practical Manual of Style of Holy Defense Oral History

Mohammad-Ali Fatemi
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2017-11-28

"Expert and Practical Manual of Style of Holy Defense's Oral History" is title of a book that was produced and compiled in Documents and Papers Organization of Holy Defense. This book was published with 500 copies and 116 pages in octavo by Foundation for Preserving Relics and Publishing Values of Holy Defense in fall of 2017.

The book's content shows that there are four chapters titled "Generalities", "Interview in Oral History", "Implementation and Compilation", and "Release". Heading of each chapter and its subheadings are presented and, in total, the content is a precise view of whole content of the book.

In the first chapter meaning and concept of oral history, dual paradox of oral history, goals of oral history, feature of oral history, structure of oral history, status of oral history in historical research, validity, authenticity and strength of oral history, oral history in Iran, barriers and problems facing oral history in Iran are addressed, and subheadings of next chapters, in some way, regard process of producing a work in field of oral history and all of its issues and stages.

Headings of the second chapter are interview in oral history, criteria of selecting interviewee, pre-interview techniques, interview techniques, duties and actions during interview, the narrator tone, interview constraints and its solutions, resource limitations and preliminary information of preparing interview plan, environmental dilemmas, instrumental and technical limitation of interview, non-contemporary and non-equality of interviewer and interviewee, circumstances of selecting subject for interview, thematic priorities of oral history of Holy Defense, individuals and authorities should be interviewed in each command, persons should be interviewed in brigades or axes, interview with people who participated in Sacred Defense anyway, sample questions for interview with the commander of the division, sample questions for interview with the unit of plan and operation, specific questions about the interview with the operation unit and the 2nd pillar of Army, sample questions for interview with staff of headquarter, sample questions for interviewing officer of IRGC artillery and Commander of Army artillery, sample questions for interviewing Armored officer, sample questions for interviewing IRGC and Army Engineering Unit, sample questions for Interviewing officer of department of martial  dispensary, sample questions for interviewing the brigade (Axis) commanders, battalion and its deputies and commander of companies, sample questions for interviewing commanders of platoon and Basij and soldier forces, sample questions for interviewing women in the sacred defense, sample questions for interviewing other people in Holy Defense, sample questions for interviewing jihadists, some questions about Construction Jihad (Jahād-e Sāzandegī) and some questions about Cultural Committee of Construction Jihad.

The third chapter also includes the following topics: implementation and re-listening, style of writing and composing, quantitative and qualitative review of the interview text, collaboration with indexer, instructions on how to deliver items to the archive, process of developing content and audit and editing, rationalization and content expertise of project in oral history. In the fourth chapter, other stages in production of an oral history work, and including: general editing, preparation process, printing and distribution, sample reading, preparation index, cover design, providing a standard example based on manual of style, receiving ISBN and LBR (listing before release) [[i]], publication , book launch and its distribution, participation, appendixes and introduction are addressed, and the book ends with flowchart of oral history work and introducing sources and references of this manual of style.

As the content shows and the final page of the book also remind us, this work, using a number of sources and references of oral history, has become a practical and immediate manual of style for producing oral Holy Defense texts; from definition of oral history to final stages of publication and even post-publication pursuits.

Feature of the book is that it is in some way a result of consensus in field of oral history of the sacred defense, although there are other opinions about its various axes, but this consensus can be another source for more accurate and precise activities of Sacred Defense oral history, of course if "Expert and Practical Manual of Style for Holy Defense's Oral History" be carefully studied and its recommendations to be implemented. In this case, result of activities would be upgraded, and such improvement would lead more professionalization of such manual of style in the future.